Twigs and Fireworks
by Borath
Summary: Bakura suffers the loss of his Hikari and is left wondering why he has been left behind as Ryou passes on into the afterlife.


Fireworks and Twigs 

By Borath

PG 13

Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh.  Don't mock or sue.

Summary: A certain spirit contemplates a certain loss.  Character death.

****

I've been pushing the same twig around this fire for hours, and yet it still doesn't burn.  Why is that?  It's made of the same substance as all the other crumbling twigs, their bark flaking to white and powdering amongst the base of the flames.  But why won't this one burn?  Why is it different?  Why does it have to *be* different.  

Fireworks again, crackling manically above me.  So high up, staring right down at me before vanishing again, their beauty short lived.  So brief but so wondrous, just like mortals actually.  They are brief and beautiful in their existence, constantly reminded of their mortality and living each day as much as they can, or as much as they see fit.  They are universal fireworks.  But I, and a handful of others, are like this twig.  We don't crumble like all the other twigs when shoved into flames.  We don't pass into the twig afterlife.  We just exist.

And why?  Why should we be so different?  Is this a penalty?  A price for our past sins, which we are all mostly unaware of, or is it the price we pay for our abilities, our powers to protect our own fireworks.  I say protect, but one of us doesn't really do that.  I barely bother, the Pharaoh certainly does but the Rod bearer doesn't seem to give a damn.  He doesn't know yet, hasn't realized just how brief his firework really is.  Then he'll be more careful, if his firework still exists after the awakening scare.

I found out today, and although I consider all my experiences to be valuable in some way or another, I wish I'd never had this one.  Today my personal firework finally fluttered away in a cloud of vanishing sparks.  My analogy makes his death sound elegant, but in reality it was not.  It was hard and gruesome and cruel and it shouldn't have happened, not like that, not to him.

I held no real affection for him, no bond, but I was used to him being around; used to his cooking, his odd concern for my well-being and used to him standing still whilst I berated him for things that were not his fault in the slightest.  He was useful and he needed me, which made me useful.  I don't know what he needed me for; I always pinned it down to me hardening him so he could stand the real world for more than a day, but now I'm not quite so sure.  I'm still going to miss him.  

I feel oddly guilty about his passing.  Resentment, anger, despair, confusion, I understand these emotions whacking around inside my mind and their reason for being there: Resentment that my world has changed; anger that it happened without my control; despair that I don't know how to handle this new world I've been left in and confusion in that I don't understand how this happened or what to do now.  Guilt though, is something entirely different.

Why the hell should I feel guilty?  I tried to save him, I truly did.  I was in that alley right beside him.  I took the knife wounds, the metal pipes, the concussion that didn't affect me.  I tried, and I tried hard.  He was mine and I didn't want anyone to take him away from me, even Anubis.  But he did.  

Because I wasn't fast enough to take the bullet.  That isn't my fault though.  I tried to do that too; I pulled a damning stunt by creating a brief 'slipstream' through the Shadow Realm to get there faster.  Not fast enough.  It tore through him, and he fell and they laughed and they died as I unleashed my wrath upon them.  I had my revenge on them.  He had gone out though before he reached the floor, but I still took the tiny little thing that tore him out of his body.  

This insignificant little thing took him away from me, and I can't quite understand that.  I can't understand the odds either, that a cockeyed shot from the hip could hit such a vulnerable place, could unleash that much precious fluid and send it gushing out into the grime.  I've kept it.  Maybe I'll understand it one day if I keep looking at it.  Maybe one day, when I'm far older and a bit wiser, I'll be able to understand.

I carried him across town in the dead of night through the parks and alleys so that no one would see me.  None of the scavengers bothered me as I walked; they ran from me.  I could see my reflection in their eyes; the harrowed, flashing eyes, the ethereal glow from my forehead, the blood drying into my pores and clothing.  Yes, more than enough incentive for them to leave me alone.

It took me an hour to reach the Pharaoh's home.  I didn't know where else to go, where else to take him.  I needed to wrap him in a sheet and I don't know where they're kept at home.  The Pharaoh would know his home though and he'd help me.  He'd hate me, blame me, but he'd help me, because he respects him.

I made the Light cry.  When he started up with those shuddering breaths and hot tears, I suddenly felt obliged to join in.  I should have, shouldn't I?  Should have mourned this loss, this death?   But I didn't.  I couldn't.  I had gone for the sheet, not to cry.  

Yami gave me what I asked for and didn't say anything about the stains on the carpet once I was done.  The sheet wrapped around his limp body made him look like a fat maggot.  I got angry at that; that analogy was disrespectful, even from me, and yet it was true.  There was no honour in this to be had, no respect.  And that's what I had expected from the sheet, from covering his body; respect.

So I took the Ring off and tucked it around it, hooking the cord behind and about the bundle so that it lay recognizably around the neck with the Item resting upon his chest.  It was better like this; more human, less maggot.

Naturally, Yami quizzed me on what had happened.  I had expected as much, but I hadn't quite prepared myself for the compassion he ladled into every word, the sympathy.  I answered his questions bluntly; I wasn't in the mood to feel affronted that he was treating me like I was made of glass, that he was prying for knowledge about a death that I had witnessed and couldn't prevent and that had happened a mere hour ago.  And then he told me something that I won't forget:

'You tried.  You can't blame yourself for what happened, because you tried.'

And what good did trying do?  I got off with an alibi should I ever wish to alleviate my guilt?  Is that it?  What fucking good does that do?  I wouldn't need to know that if I hadn't *tried* but had *succeeded*.  Trying wasn't good enough, it never is.  Trying is for the weak and the incompetent.  Succeeding is for the strong and those capable of taking what they want.  This turn of events makes me weak then.  I wanted him to stay alive but I was too slow to do so.  And now I can't do anything about it.

The Pharaoh insisted that I leave him with them and try and get some rest.  He forgot that we're both twigs; we don't need rest, at least not physically.  We aren't going to crumble and flake out of exhaustion, unlike fireworks, which need a lot of energy to complete their existence.  

I later figured out that he meant mental rest, so I selfishly took the opportunity and slipped out.  I'm going back there in a few hours.  My limbs are stiff at the moment from being in the same position for hours.  I came into the woods and built a fire to stare at, to poke, to keep alight.  It's kept my hands entertained whilst my mind continues its flurry at least.  It's also raised my twig/firework analogy as well as the question.

I considered suicide, but quickly realised that I was faced with the slight hindrance of not actually being able to die.  I'd have to have either the Pharaoh or the Rod bearer do it for me.  The former wouldn't unless I seriously threatened his Light, which I am seriously considering doing, and the latter is at a location I am currently unawares of.  I couldn't simply open my arms or swallow poison or even hang myself.  I'd have to be obliterated without a trace, and there are only a few things that could do that, and all of them are extremely powerful.  Perhaps I could find a good lightening conductor?  That might do it.  I should be so lucky.

For the moment, at least, I'm stuck.  I am alive by some cosmic joke and I can't do anything about it.  I never prepared for this either.  For a start, I thought that if he were to die then he would certainly take me with him, his body being my vessel if only in the beginning.  I also figured that if anyone was going to kill him it would be me, and likely to end my own tired existence some years down the line or out of outright stupidity on my part.  Never like this though; I had no emotional contingency plan for this.

Another firework explodes above me and I look up this time, seeing through the skeletal hands of the trees the dazzling colours, the brilliant light, and the gentle shower of red glimmers that shower down when its moment to shine has ended.  A rumbled of thunder in the distance, and I mentally count the seconds until the lightening hits.  

Looking down, I regard the twig I've been poking so diligently for the last hour.  I can feel a static tingle in the air around me as I stare at it, an unimaginable power slowly winding up in an accelerating pace and intensity.  The twig is my focus though.  I think… Yes, the tips are turning white.  I push it further into the flames and see it smoke for a moment before beginning to crumble and flake to the pristine colour.  I must not be like the twig then.  So what am I?

Looking up again, the object of my observations now gone, I regard the grey sky.  Light, fast droplets of rain hail down on me without warning and there's a flash in the heavens directly above me.  I have to smile at this sign of the existence of a god, the sign that there is some comfort and justice to be had in the universe.

Closing my eyes, I wait for the milliseconds it takes for the surge of power to strike me.  I wait to be turned into a cloud of fading sparks.

****

Weird yes, but considering that I wrote this as it came into my mind with absolutely no planning involved, I think it turned out okay.  Please leave a review, and let me know what you think.


End file.
